{"id":468848,"date":"2026-02-14T20:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T20:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/468848\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T20:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T20:43:11","slug":"kennedy-is-banning-junk-food-from-snap-our-quiz-shows-what-counts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/468848\/","title":{"rendered":"Kennedy is banning junk food from SNAP. Our quiz shows what counts."},"content":{"rendered":"

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s most significant effort to overhaul what Americans eat seeks to block low-income people from buying junk food with their food stamps. It\u2019s not so easy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since Jan. 1, five states \u2013 Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah and West Virginia \u2013 have banned soda or other unhealthy foods from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation\u2019s largest anti-hunger initiative which serves more than 40 million people. The idea has a long history, with supporters on both sides of the aisle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the rollout of those food restrictions has been bumpy and confusing<\/a>, leaving buyers and grocers trying to figure out what even qualifies as \u201cjunk food.\u201d Is Gatorade? What about granola bars? And the five states certainly don\u2019t agree on what counts as candy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not even clear the policy will accomplish Kennedy\u2019s stated goals. There\u2019s limited evidence they will improve Americans\u2019 health, given that people can use other money to buy whatever they\u2019d like, each state limits different items and the restrictions are not directly tied to nutritional value. Some banned items, for example, are actually lower in sugar or fat than foods that are allowed.<\/p>\n

Indiana and Iowa\u2019s state governments have declined to provide a list of banned items, with Iowa going so far as to say it would be \u201ctoo tedious<\/a>.\u201d States are instead putting the burden on retailers and consumers to figure things out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s our quiz to help you understand how it all works \u2014 and reveal the inconsistencies in Kennedy\u2019s big push to overhaul SNAP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s most significant effort to overhaul what Americans eat seeks to block low-income…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-468848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}